How to Make a Personalized ABC Photo Book

The best gift I have given Isaac is his ABC book. It is filled with pictures from his first year, and he loves reading it. It is not hard to make a personalized ABC photo book! Here is everything you need to know to get started.

I have been using Chatbooks for years. You can read more about how I use Chatbooks for my regular photo books here and here. For this project, you’ll use Chatbook’s option to create a custom photo book to make a personalized ABC photo book.

Chatbooks makes it super simple to make a personalized ABC photo book because they have a template for the book already setup. They provide adorable cover art and all the graphics for each letter. All you have to do is add your photos and text.

[Note: If you don’t want to use Chatbooks, you could easily recreate something like this using a different photo book company. You’ll need to provide the letter graphics, which could easily be downloaded or created yourself. A very fast way to create your own: open a word document, select your favorite font, enlarge the font to fill the screen, add color, screenshot each letter, then upload those images to your photo book.]

Add Photos to Your Book

Once you hit “add photos,” you will be given the option to select photos from your camera roll (or computer if you are creating this on your computer), Instagram, Facebook, Google, or Dropbox.

After you add your photos, you need to drag them to the appropriate spot in the book. For the correct layout, you’ll want to add your photo directly after the appropriate letter. For example, the A graphic should be page 2. Then you’ll add the A photo to the page 3 slot.

In the graphic above, you can see that page 1 is blank. You can add text there to include a dedication or note to your little one.

Add a caption for each photo. Make sure you are consistent about things like capitalization and punctuation.

I like that each photo includes the date the picture was taken. This is a feature that Chatbooks adds automatically.

Brainstorming Photo Ideas

I wanted to include a lot of loved ones in Isaac’s book. Every member of the immediate family is represented by a letter, and several extended family members are also. I didn’t stress out about including every single person, but if that is important to you, you could have multiple pictures for certain letters.

After filling in family members, I scrolled through my photos and looked for any other pictures that would fit. Every picture has at least one person in it, and I tried to have Isaac in most of the pictures.

To help you come up with ideas, here are ones I came up with for Isaac’s book along with some additional suggestions.

A is for Aunt Amy – apple, alligator, airplane

B is for bath – banana, ball, blocks

C is for cousins – cat, car, Christmas

D is for Daddy – dog, dinosaur, doll

E is for eat – elephant, ear, Easter

F is for family (photo of extended family) – food, frog, funny faces

G is for Grace (big sister) – giggle, grandma, grass

H is for horse – house, hands, hat

I is for Isaac (I was super close to doing ice cream instead! Mom fail!!) – ice, insects, inside

J is for Jeremy (uncle) – jump, jacket, jelly

K is for kitty – keys, kids, kiss

L is for library – lollipop, lion, laugh

M is for Mommy – milk, monkey, mail

N is for Noah (big brother) – nuk (pacifier), naughty, nighttime

O is for ocean – owl, oven, orange

P is for pumpkins – purple, pig, pizza

Q is for q-tips – quiet, quilt, quack-quack

R is for refrigerator – run, rain, rabbit

S is for sleep – snow, swing set, sad

T is for tunnel – teddy bear, tree, truck

U is for uncles – umbrella, under, unicorn

V is for van – vegetables, vacuum, voyage

W is for washing machine – window, wagon, watermelon

X is for eXcited – xylophone, eXtra silly/sleepy/messy

Y is for yawn – yogurt, yellow, yummy

Z is for zebra – zoo, zipper, zucchini

I was able to find photos for most of the letters, but there were a couple of pictures that I took specifically for the book (van, zebra, etc.)

Pricing

Chatbooks offers two different book sizes and cover options. I highly recommend upgrading to the hardcover book if you are giving it to an infant or toddler. (Prices are subject to change.)

6×6 softcover – $16.60

6×6 hardcover – $21.60

8×8 softcover – $31.20

8×8 hardcover – $41.20

I had some free credits with Chatbooks, and ordered during a sale. I picked the 8×8 hardcover book, and the total charge was $33.60.

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Comments

Such an adorable idea. Our last grandson (probably) just had his first birthday but Mommy is planning a half birthday (due to inconvenient December birthday) and I might could have it done by then. Unfortunately I don’t have nearly as many pix as I do of the first grandchildren … Hmmm. I could maybe suggest it to HER.

I am so sad. Chatbooks does not have the abc cover or pages anymore that I can find. I was and am so wanting to do it for my niece. If you any pull to get it back let me know. Thank you. I am a weekly listener of sorta awesome and following you in Instagram